If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

FAT 32

I converted my HD using Windows 98 to FAT 32.
The problem is I canīt go back to FAT 16.
Is it possible to have Win 98,NT 4 and Linux
(Red Hat Edition) on the same drive but in
different partitions?
Please help!

Why do you need to go back to FAT16? If you really need to, you can use software such as partition magic. But I suggest staying with FAT32, it wastes a lot less space on your disk. To answer your question, Linux and FAT32 get along fine, and I presume that NT would coexist on the same disk too (although I'm not sure whether Linux can read an NT partition). My current setup is three FAT32 partitions for Win98, and a 500MB Linux partition. Works great.

I've heard of drivers that enable Linux to access NTFS partitions. In read only mode that is. It even ignores all the security settings and you have access to virtually everything on an NTFS partition.

I thought Win NT(4.0) must have FAT 16 as a
base before converting to NTFS.After that
the three other partitions will be coverted
back to FAT 32.(Win 98+Linux).
Maybe "Partition Magic" will do this for me?

I haven't used Partition Magic before (as the version I had couldn't deal very well with NTFS partitions in the way that I needed) but...

Win NT 4 does need FAT16 as a base before converting to NTFS, and after that, the other partitions won't be converted back to FAT32 as far as I know. If you're installing NT on a separate partition, it shouldn't affect the setup of the other partitions anyway, all you need is for the partition on which NT will be installed to be FAT16. Also, Win98 can't read NTFS drives by default, unless you buy drivers such as those from www.sysinternals.com (these are the drivers that bypass NT security). And to make life even more complicated, WinNT4 can't read FAT32.

It is indeed possible to install all these OSs on the same disk, on different partitions and to multi boot between them. The easiest way is to stick to FAT16 partitions for win98 and NT as you can share data etc more easily this way. However, if you want to install NT on NTFS and 98 on FAT32 etc...you can do that too, but will need to make a copy of the boot sectors.

Information on filing systems and partitions can be found on the microsoft knowledge base, and information on dual booting between different operating systems on different filing systems can be found at www.winsources.com (zdnet).